Capita, Per

Capita, Per (by heads). Distribution of personalty per capita (professedly borrowed from the civilians, and enacted in the Statute of Distribution) happens when all the claimants claim in their own right, in equal degree of kindred, and not jure representationis (per stripes), in the right of another person, as if the next of kin be the intestate's three children, A., B., and C.; here the intestate's personalty is divided into three equal portions, and distributed per capita, one to each. The expression 'per capita, does not occur in the Administration of Estates Act, 1925, which repealed the Statute of Distribution and altered and diminished family rights in the distribution of intestate estates. See Widow in regard to all deaths after 1925.